Cultural ambivalence in the translation of Algerian popular expressions into English

Abstract EN

Popular expressions express a nation's cultural identity and are concerned with its moral principles, conventions, traditions, rituals and cultural patrimony.

besides the fact that their authors are usually unknown, most of them are seldom written, and are generally transferred from one generation to another orally.

within this context, this paper will focus on the issue of popular expressions, and on the necessity to translate them to spring them worldwide.

it also attempts to illustrate some translation strategies that may help the translator to overcome the problem of cultural clash between Algerian popular expressions and their English coequal.

finally, it suggests the adoption of Peter Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation strategies to face the cultural loss caused by cultural variation between two distant cultures.